


Capriccio

by larissabernstein



Series: The Marvellous and Utterly Scandalous Adventures of Corneillegué and Corsair [1]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Love Never Dies - Lloyd Webber, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber, Phantom of the Opera RPF
Genre: Aestheticism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Art Criticism, F/M, Fan Characters, Fan Insert, Faux Music History, Happy Ending, Historical Figures, Historical References, Humor, Literary References & Allusions, Meta, Metafiction, Parody, Post-Canon, Smut, Spanking, everything is an opera, real person fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-19 23:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19981972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larissabernstein/pseuds/larissabernstein
Summary: It is the year 1888, several years after the events of the Final Lair, and there is still a Phantom haunting the Opéra Garnier. But this time he has a Cat.No phans were harmed in the making of this phic. Much.





	Capriccio

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catcorsair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catcorsair/gifts).



> This work came about after a joke turned into an outrageous idea and then it begot plot. And smut.
> 
> As always with my phics, this is set in the ALW universe (albeit taking place several years after the events of the Final Lair), and when I say ALW, I mean the original West End production. And as always: my phantom is based on the original OG's interpretation of the character.
> 
> Accompanying artwork by Klaus Scrimshaw.

Eins ist im andern und will zum andern.

Musik weckt Gefühle, die drängen zum Worte.

Im Wort lebt ein Sehnen nach Klang und Musik.

One lives inside the other and seeks the other.

Music awakens emotions that yearn for the word.

In words lies a longing for sound and music.

(Richard Strauss, _Capriccio. Konversationsstück für Musik / A Conversation Piece for Music_ , Op. 85, Scene 6; libretto by Clemens Krauss and Richard Strauss; translation L.B.)

**Capriccio**

“Ohhh, you have a cat!”

This was not the first sentence that Erik had expected to hear from the woman when he removed her blindfold and gag, and be it the cheery exclamation that bordered on cooing and was really not befitting her current situation, or be it the fact that Ayesha had once again upstaged him and robbed him of a grand, dramatic entrance, it took him by surprise and added an aleatory variable to his plan that he did not like at all.

“If you will excuse me,” he said in an undertone, as he picked up the offending feline before it could stroll any closer to the ornate throne-like chair where his guest was seated, and he was sure he could feel the woman’s eyes following his every move and riveting on his back, as he quickly crossed the parlour and showed the cat out through the door into one of the adjacent rooms, not without running his hands through its fur in an apologetic caress.

When he turned his attention back on his guest, he found her bespectacled gaze still focused intently on him, and a small smile was playing about her lips; she was entirely too much at ease for his taste.

He straightened and smoothed his hands over his wig and the lapels of his dress coat, and her eyes noticeably followed the path of his hands; good — at least he had her full attention.

“So we finally meet in person. I bid you welcome, Mademoiselle Corsair—”

“Cat, simply Cat,” she cut him off. “Like that little friend of yours. Don’t mademoiselle me, Erik. I am sitting bound and kidnapped in your cellar,” she gave an accusatory nod towards her hands that lay crossed on her lap, a soft rope tied around the wrists. “Don’t you think we are past such formalities?”

It took him some strength to, if not suppress, so at least turn the tiny flinch that went through him at hearing the first name from her lips — and he was not entirely sure which felt more intrusive, _her_ first name, so freely offered, or _his_ own first and only name, a name with which he had signed his letters to her before and thereby downright invited her to use it in her letters to him, but it felt so much more personal now when taken so boldly into her mouth, — into a physical gesture that could have been mistaken for a shrug.

But then, this little vixen was nothing if not perceptive, and her eyes were all too keenly locked on him, probably filing away all her observations for future literary use.

“Very well,” he coughed into a palm to shake off his sudden hoarseness, “Cat,” he tried the name on his lips and found its taste and shape not altogether unwelcome, “Cat,” he repeated, and it went much more smoothly the second time around, and there was something close to an appreciative gaze in her eyes now.

“I have invited you here,” he continued, only to be interrupted yet again, this time by an unladylike snort that cut into his sentence, “I have — _brought_ you here, because we have much to discuss, and communication by letter seems to be insufficient, where you are concerned.”

As much as he had become accustomed to their regular correspondence over the last five months, even to the point of enjoying and expecting her witty remarks and bold ideas, trading intellectual barbs — and hiding behind the safe barrier of ink and paper — was not enough when it came to their increasing disagreements over the libretto and its frustratingly slow progress.

He brought up a hand to stall the words that were already forming visibly behind this sharp gaze of hers and threatened to spill from her lips.

“Hear me out,” and how did that usually work among polite society — say something nice and positive before launching into criticism? — “You must be aware that I appreciate your oeuvre, otherwise I would not have allowed you to work for me,” — and no, this was not a good choice of phrasing — “I would not have _asked_ you to work with me.”

“But…?” Her eyes narrowed.

“But your constant ignoring the instructions in my letters, this blatant disregard of my detailed wishes, the obscene liberties you take with my main character, this cannot go on.” And he let his hands draw a sweeping gesture into the air to emphasise the gravity of his next words, “You have turned my Faust into a decadent libertine! You are doing a grave injustice to my music, you abuse the power I have granted you, you…”

“You want to terminate our contract then, is that it?” Cat stared up at him, a mix of disappointment and hurt creasing her brow.

Erik took a deep breath. He hated being interrupted, by such asinine assumptions no less.

“No,” it came out just a level too loud, “no, you damn woman, I do not intend to end our collaboration.” What was that person thinking!? He would not have gone to such great lengths to bring her here — setting up the trap in the managers’ office perfectly timed with her scheduled appointment at the _Opéra_ , mildly drugging her tea, dragging her blindfolded and not exactly compliant body all the way down to his home, and all of this without inviting unwanted attention and thereby upsetting the fragile equilibrium of his continued existence in this house — when all the same he could have ended her, no, wrong wrong wrong, could have ended their stupid contract up above, in her world of light.

He only noticed that this verbal outburst had made him physically advance on her when he suddenly found himself immediately close to her seated form, close enough to hear her soft, regular breathing, close enough to touch, close enough to smell the clean, fresh scent of her hair. Her head was tilted back to look up at him, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not ascertain what was going on behind those eyes. What kind of impression did he make on her? What did she see? A monstrous madman with a bad temper? An authoritative mastermind whose genius commanded respect?

Erik knew he undermined both possibilities when he dropped to one knee in front of her and, with quick, perfunctory movements, untied her hands, and, with slower, decidedly not perfunctory movements, assessed the skin of her wrists for possible damage. There was none, thanks to the soft rope he had used on her, and there was really no need for him to rub and soothe those wrists in gentle circles, but she kept staring at his hands as if in trance, at their hands, and he was staring, too, and when he finally, forcefully tore himself away from her, his fingers were still describing circles in the air for several seconds, as if they first had to process the loss.

He got up and turned away for a moment, automatically reaching up to clandestinely check his mask, but it was still in place, of course it was, and there was no reason for him to feel so bare.

“Apart from what you did to me, no, to my Faust,” Erik began again, turning back to face her, “there are oddities, peculiarities, if you will, in the last draft you submitted, that detract from the story, detract from my music. You have a penchant for repeating certain words again and again, throughout the libretto, and it is hard not to notice this — and once you notice this, it becomes quite vexing.” He looked down at his hands. “I am not used to this; my own libretti never had this fault.”

“Oh.” A very non-committal reply, and nothing that was going to help him with the flow of the conversation.

“It is a completely new experience for me to work with a librettist,” he sighed, “and not an altogether pleasant one. Giving up control over a vital part of my work means compromising on perfection.”

“Hm.” Cat seemed lost in thoughts, but there was something rather disquieting about her now as she pursed her lips. “I would not call your own libretti perfect, Erik.”

He surely had misheard that last one, but how could he not, when that woman was getting up from her seat and stretching her limbs, and this was a strange sight in his home, one that awoke painful memories of a past not that distant and still so long ago, and certainly that was no seemly behaviour on her part in any case, and he — he should really stop gawking now.

“By all means,” he cleared his throat, “speak your mind!”

“Well, for one,” she had stopped her stretching to cross her arms and fix him with a stare instead, “the amount of phallic innuendo in _La Musique de la Nuit_ does either betray a puerile mind or,” Cat did not even blink, “a certain obsession with the erotic that focuses too strongly on the needy male recipient. _Grasp it, sense it — tremulous and tender_ …? That’s all well and good, but whatever happened to artful subtlety?”

Erik swallowed and forced himself to stay calm, but he could not help pacing up and down the parlour. He _had_ asked her to speak her mind… However, the nerve! How could she dare to mock one of his, albeit pseudonymous, compositions that had actually enjoyed decent success on the stage?

“Subtlety, Mademoiselle?” It came out as a sneer. “What fine criticism from the mouth of someone who scandalised Paris with her near-pornographic poetry.”

“That you obviously enjoyed enough to commission me. I said subtlety, Erik, not puritanism. A few of my works might be considered pornographic, if you like to call them that, but my choice of vocabulary — calling things what they are — is not equal to shoving the intended meaning into the face of the reader or theatre audience; you want to guide them to see your ideas, not rape them with your authoritative interpretation. See, if we look at your first opera,—”

He groaned and felt his hands ball themselves into fists. No, not his _Don Juan Triomphant_ now, the masterpiece he had been working on for close to thirty years; had this creation of his, this innate part of himself, not already suffered enough under its one doomed performance? Why had he even revealed his authorship to that woman?

But she just kept going, ignorant of the pain she was inflicting. “The music was radical and daring and certainly ahead of its times — but your libretto showed all the weaknesses of the _grand opéra_ ; as such it was incredibly old-fashioned. You spelled it all out for the audience as if they had no intellect of their own; don’t you think there are more than just those patrons who only come to gape at the ballet girls? _How long should we two wait, before we’re one? When will the blood begin to race, the sleeping bud burst into bloom?_ The sleeping bud?! Could anyone think of a more purple way to describe a seduction? Coupled with this obstinate obsession over virginity — _What rich desire unlocks its door?_ Erik, it’s a cunt, not a fucking house with a door lock and knocker.”

“Enough,” he could not suppress his rage any longer that gnawed at him from the inside, especially not with these indecent words she was so carelessly using in his presence, as if to taunt him with what he could not have, not in any conventional, unforced or unremunerated, way at least, and in three long strides he crossed the parlour to where she stood by the chair, and planted himself right in front of the impudent wench. “Look at me,” he hissed and pointed at his covered right side, “the face of death hidden under my mask, a loathsome carcass of a man. Do you not think I had a lifetime enough of mockery?”

There was no fear in her eyes, but something close to compassion. “I was there, at the premiere of _Don Juan_ , in the audience. I know what hides beneath the mask. Certainly nothing that defines you, judging from your creative output of the last few years. And I know that you love your dramatic flourish. It shows in your operas, to an almost unhealthy extent.”

“You know nothing about me,” he growled and drew himself up to full height, giving his expressive hands free rein to stalk the very air around her. He knew how threatening his physical presence could appear to people given the right staging. In his own lair he had no need of smoke and mirrors to increase the effect, as the underground setting, the dungeon-style portcullis, the mist and candlelight, already worked formidably in his favour. On this woman, however, the efforts seemed to be somewhat lost, and he felt the need to invade her personal space more strongly, until he had nearly backed her up against the armrest of his throne.

“Well, you made sure I knew enough,” Cat said. “This excruciating revenge opera of yours — with the charade of the masked anti-hero genius that all the world has wronged, and so he has to take his own bad decisions out on the world — this is you at your worst, a pathetic self-insert into a work of fiction, Monsieur Mystery. And of course, you kill off your love interest, and ruin the lives of all other characters, all in the name of operatic tragedy, and the only one left — left to suffer, of course — is you, so that you can lick your wounds and feel justified in your anger.”

“And is it not justified?” His hands had come up to grasp her upper arms, lustrous silk taffeta over warm skin, and he felt a strange urge come over him to show her just what he could be _at his worst_.

Indeed, _L’Amour Ne Meurt Jamais_ , his most recent work, had been savaged by the critics. “A spawn from the hell of verismo taken to extremes”, “gaudy, cheap, almost American”, “someone dies but the audience is not that lucky”… The headlines were still haunting him, and he was glad that he had used a different pseudonym for this work of his. But what did these ignorant fools and scandalmongers know? However, hearing such scathing criticism from an author whose works he actually found worthy was a different, decidedly unpleasant experience that cut him deeply, especially as he knew that some of it was not without reason, and this, especially this, made him furious and set his blood alight, and why was this woman all pressed up against him, heat and silk and this particular scent that spelled _woman_ , invading his space, invading his senses?

“You are dramatic,” she rolled her eyes at him, she actually dared to, “and Faust _is_ a decadent libertine, that is what I got from our correspondence, and that is how I wrote him. An unrepentant, sexually deviant, and pleasure-hungry libertine.”

There had to be something in the air, something maddening, because how else was it possible that someone dared to challenge him in such a way, and fling such obscene ideas at him, such explicit words, with no thoughts whatsoever wasted on the consequences? Erik felt something, this maddening, infectious something, spark and spread between them, heightening every sensation and every bit of rage and dark desire in him. Such foolish defiance, such careless effrontery! It made him want to do terrible, unspeakable things to her, like kill her or kiss her, and hurt her, yes, definitely hurt her.

His hands had given up their hold on her arms at some point, but he became very much aware now that there was still silk under his fingers, the silk of her dress bodice, the silk of her skirts, and skin — silky skin, too, because these fingers were roaming all over her body, every part of her that was in convenient reach, and why did she let him do that?

“You will stop challenging and taunting me, you Pandora!” He let his voice whisper over her like another, even more intimate caress.

“Or else?” Her body moved against his hands, followed and gave in to the touch of fingers and voice.

“Else I might need to teach you a lesson to respect your elders…”

She closed her eyes at his words and leaned in, and he recognised the way she tilted her head to the side, how she was aiming for a kiss, certainly a kiss, and it made Erik ache and burn — and angry, because such kisses were poisonous and always and ever the end, and if he followed this desire now and relented to her, it was going to be his end. Before he knew what happened, he was dodging her lips, and pulling her closer yet, in a strange and unexpected move, a dance of sorts, a grappling for dominance, and he felt himself plummet into the chair and pull her along, until she came to lie in prone position across his thighs. And there was some utterance of, not protest, but surprise, or a question; but it was quickly drowned out in the sounds of rustling as taffeta skirts were pushed aside and crushed and folded over, and then he found his hand glide over cotton, and a mad urge took hold, because maybe this was serendipity, and exactly what he had to give to the monster, lest he do something much worse.

“So, what do you think, my dear, how many is it going to be?” He emphasised the question by pulling the cotton of her bloomers taut over her arse, letting the thin fabric stretch over her curves like a second skin, leaving hardly anything to the imagination, and there could surely be no doubt now what he had in mind. “Let us see — how does sixty-four sound? That is the exact number of hyphenated expressions littering the last draft you sent in; and that was only the first half of the libretto, was it not?”

Her sharp gasp was gratifying and signified quite well that she had understood exactly what he had in mind. It was about time she showed some trepidation.

“You can’t be serious,” she sputtered and struggled against his grip, “so you did really count them?”

“I did. There were also fifty-eight instances of _atop_ , thirty-seven uses of _aside_ , and the staggering number of one-hundred-and-four _about_ , most of these prepositions used in rather, shall we say, creative and unorthodox ways.” He fought to keep the amusement out of his voice; this was a serious matter of business. “So, what shall it be? How many? Make your choice.”

She stilled under his arms. “You are absurd, picking at my text like this. Coming from a man who got a wrong Italian plural past the correctors. Surely, you don’t expect me to change all of these words? At least half of them were justified. And certain outlandish expressions and combinations just work perfectly with the dramatic force of your pathos, the grand gesture…”

“Flattering Delilah, you shall know me,” he made sure to colour his voice with just a touch of silvery ice, and then he started swatting away at the cotton-clad derrière in front of him, to a satisfying shriek of surprise falling from her lips, but at least she did not struggle against his hold anymore, and he was not entirely sure if that disappointed or pleased him. He did not keep count, just let his pent-up anger and frustration hail down on her for a while — there was something almost meditative about it — and it was only when he felt the tips of her fingers digging into his calves, that he paused to take it all in before him. The woman was trembling ever so slightly, soft tremors dancing over her body and sending shock waves into his own thighs and lap beneath her, her body rising and falling with each hastened breath travelling through her lungs, and her thinly covered arse demanding the main attention, as _pièce-de-résistance_ of this picture.

“And how many do _you_ deserve, Erik,” she spoke up suddenly between laboured breaths, “for all those purple phrases you kept springing on your audience opera after opera?”

The nerve of this insolent brat! “Keep up the insults, if you do not plan on sitting comfortably anytime soon,” he ground out and, on a sudden whim that he could not really explain to himself, grabbed the waistband of her bloomers and tugged them down all the way to her knees, exposing her rosy curves to the cool night air of his subterranean home and his eager gaze. She froze and tensed under his hands for a moment, but then he felt her form relax against his thighs again, her body becoming a sweet and all-too inviting weight, and the fingers that buried themselves even deeper in his trouser legs, as if she were readying herself for what was to come, were all the incitement he needed. Such a lovely show of acceptance and submission, even if it might be in utter contrast to their creative partnership!

The sight was intoxicating and gave him a heady sense of control he had missed for far too long, and the need to run his hands over the newly bared skin grew in urgency, to stroke gently, then grope her flesh roughly, to elicit more of those delightful squeaks she only seemed to let out when he managed to surprise her, and there was so much more he could do to take her by surprise, could he not, but wasn’t this about teaching the impertinent woman a lesson, making her realise that he was not a man to be trifled with, but a serious artist in relentless pursuit of perfection? Had that not been the reason why he had thrown her over his lap, really the only valid reason, and why was he obsessing over the softness of her skin under his hands now, why were those traitorous fingertips wandering over her curves as if they wanted to memorise them by touch alone, why did they hunger to pull a little at those perfect cheeks of her arse and explore the hidden parts of her? But oh, those urges were dangerous and altogether unseemly, when all he should care about was the advancing and perfecting of his oeuvre, and he had to focus, now, focus, lest he lose himself again, and so he threw himself into the task at hand, and let his anger paint blazing handprints on her bottom, again and again, to the now unrestrainedly loud and obscenely gratifying noise of skin striking skin, and her gasps picking up pace, until the marks blurred into the colour of a sunrise on the canvas of her flesh.

“Count yourself lucky that I do not have any implements at hand, like a hairbrush — oh, I do have one somewhere in my bedroom, do not tempt me to get it for you! How you would deserve it for your continuous disobedience! The words are to serve the music, has no one ever told you? _Prima la musica e poi le parole!_ ” Erik knew he was babbling, and he knew that she knew — but it was doing something to her, did it not? — and nothing of this nonsense was close to his own aesthetic conviction. The libretto was never inferior, should never be treated as inferior, no, that was a thing of the past. The words were of utter importance, naturally, part of the total work of art, and there was a damn good reason why he had decided to leave this part to her expertise and focus on the music instead. He had learnt to recognise his limitations, after all, no matter how much he hated the feeling, and there was no use slaving over a libretto while his genius could spend a time so much more fruitful on the composition. However, it did not matter, how true or convincing his sentences were in the current situation — let music dominate the poetry now, let his notes punish her words for the shortcomings and struggles of both, if he could only experience the effect of his melodious voice on her, how it made her all but melt against him and surrender, and seeing the power of his voice once again work its magic on another being, in such an intimate setting no less, filled him with delirious excitement.

“The back of the brush is ornately engraved silver,” he continued between slaps with his bare hand, “and it would surely smart, believe me.” Was her reply an utterance of pain or a moan? “The floral design, however, would leave the most fascinating patterns imprinted on your porcelain skin, fleur-de-lis marks blooming on your arse and the back of your thighs,” and he added a few well-aimed slaps just there, to emphasise the visuals and fuel the phantasy, and, yes, this was not a mere sound of pain from her lips, this was… music, carnal and raw music, and it was also poetry, the kind of poetry that conveys its passion without mere mortal words, a symphony of sobs and sighs and groans and gasps, to the rhythm of the percussion rocking her flesh.

“I would use it mercilessly on you,” his voice had now dropped to a breathy whisper, “for every mocking word you so carelessly uttered about my opera, I would punish you tenfold, until I had spanked the frivolity out of you and you would bruise beautifully for me…” _And then I would take you, roughly, and make you scream with my music and fuck you with my metaphors that you so cruelly mock_ , his mind added, because _this_ he could not speak out loud, and oh, he felt dizzy, and how he did wish now that he had a damn hairbrush within convenient reach, because his sensitive hand burned and hurt under the continued onslaught, he was going to feel it for days to come and playing the organ was going to be sinful torture, and he was such a fool, really, he could at least have put on his trusted leather gloves to protect his hand, protect it from the impact, and the heat, and the sweet softness, and the temptation that rippled through him with every spank and sent sparks of need into his lower abdomen. But he had no hairbrush or gloves to save him from the tingling in his fingers, fingers that drifted lower with every strike, and those were not so much strikes now in any case, no violent spanks, but a repeated grazing of the soft strip of skin where bottom met thigh, and where thigh met thigh, a dipping into that gap between them, and did her legs part ever so slightly now under his probing, yes, they did, good God, they did, and then the tips of two fingers found her forbidden folds and slipped in, and the loud moan she let out was just as strong a shock as the incredible wetness licking at his fingertips, and it pulled him out of whatever insanity had put him under its spell.

“You are enjoying this,” he felt the words leave him in a hiss and quickly removed his hands from her as if burned, and it should have come out as an accusation, or at least something remotely feigning moralistic outrage, but the tone of disbelief and puzzlement was clearly there, and he hated how vulnerable it made him sound.

“So are you,” the vixen retorted into the wool of his trouser leg and wiggled on his lap, and seriously, this was unfair, no one should be able to retain that much dignity in one’s speech, while lying belly down over his knees, skirts bunched up into an inelegant mess, and bloomers pulled down at half-mast. And then she wiggled some more, and there was no mistaking it, no, she was all too clearly aware just how much he was enjoying this, and surely it did not help when a moan forced its way out of his throat, but the friction against his wool-trapped cock was just too good, too strong, and not nearly enough, and how had he ever ended up in such a position, and, damnation, if she would just stop fidgeting and wiggling, and, no, please, don’t stop, don’t…, ah, and what was that hand of his doing on her derrière again, when had he put it there once more, and there was really no pretence of disciplining her now — but had there ever? — and it was just stroking lazily at her deeply reddened skin, its impossible heat surging up into his palm and burning him from the inside out, and when had he started pushing her more strongly against his lap, against his cock, chasing the friction —

“You will cease this indecent behaviour immediately!” He growled and stilled her body that was so enticingly sprawled over his lap, but — for the life of him — he could not tell if he had actually intended to address her, or make a desperate call to the last vestiges of reason left in him. The blood pounded in his temples, and lower, lower, where he felt ready to burst through the seams of his fine evening wear. His knuckles seemed unnaturally white to him, even for a ghostly hand such as his, where they had formed a death grip in the folds of her upturned skirts.

And then the woman’s head came up to look back over her shoulder at him, dark-blond hair tousled over a decidedly flushed complexion, her spectacles fogged with perspiration. _Qui, moi?_ her expression seemed to say, in a mix of breathless innocence and smug mischief, one delicately shaped brow raised in playful confusion, and Erik felt reminded again that this particular specimen of womenfolk was neither a lorn, young thing he could easily mould and guide and groom to his liking, nor a simple-minded lady of bourgeois society; no, this one lived and breathed modernism and had made herself a name among the artists of Paris — not that Erik cared about any of them, but still… still — and published far too many scandalous works in the _Mercure_ and _La Plume_ , and it had been one of her daring stage plays that had formed the basis for Debussy’s latest scandal, and that uptight wannabe had to thank her for it, and Erik could not help wasting at least a fleeting thought on the method of collaboration the fucker might have had to employ to get a decent adaption for the libretto out of her in the end. It made Erik feel even hotter and sweat under his mask, and his collar was much too tight all of sudden, with images flooding his mind of this terrible, infuriating, perfect woman bent over Debussy’s knees, or maybe even in much more outrageous positions, and if those nefarious rumours about the happenings at Rachilde’s decadent salon were anything to go by — not that he paid much attention to such tabloid stories, but still… still — it was torture to think about it and it took all his strength to stifle his instinctive, possessive urge to just keep her with him, hidden away five stories under the _Opéra_ , and make sure she’d only ever write for him from now on, no matter how nerve-wracking their actual creative partnership was definitely going to turn out.

However, that particular pattern only promised doom and despair, and judging from herbehaviour so far, he had every reason to doubt she would be an easy prisoner. Cursed womenfolk! And damn that one in particular who had probably fucked half of the Parisian _bohème_ and campaigned for women’s suffrage in her spare time! Leading him on, making him lose control, tempting him with what _he_ surely never could have, half of Paris, yes — yes, but not he, the ghost depending on pseudonyms and masks.

This acute gaze of hers was still on him, dissecting him, probably reading him like an open book and already composing a censorship-worthy poem or terrifyingly realistic play in her mind, and he had to put an end to the charade now, immediately, before the last string of control would snap and then he would have to — have her, take her, fuck her, consent or not, and get his own taste of a world that would never accept him among their ranks, no matter their sham sympathy for the grotesque and monstrous that seemed to be so radically _en vogue_ now.

“Forgive me,” the words came out as a croak, as he helped her to her feet, and as an afterthought, “I think you are sufficiently disciplined, would you not say?” And this was, of course, stupid and unbecoming, a failed attempt at levity, and he could feel the shame warm and colour the _good side_ of his face, and his ears were probably glowing, but that temptress actually smiled now, a queer and discomfiting smile he could not quite place, and then it registered with him that there were words that accompanied the smile, “I think not”, and it did not matter if forgiveness or agreement was denied, as not even a moment later he felt himself pushed back against the hard mahogany of his throne, and then there were two dainty hands busying themselves with the buttons on his trousers, and Cat was suddenly on her knees in front of him, her rumpled skirts surrounding her like the petals of a flower, and there was no route of escape now, if he did not want to push her aside in a terribly ungentlemanly manner.

Had she done that to Debussy, that puffed up _balourd_ , that would-be avant-gardist, had she done that to him too, looked up at him from that most suggestive of positions between his spread knees, eyes raised from under their crown of fanned-out lashes, all poised to seduce?

Erik tried not to think about what lay hidden under her skirts, how she had never rightened her underwear before dropping to her knees, how her arse was still uncovered save for the marks he had put there, and how her cunt was probably dripping its delightful wetness down the insides of her thighs, and if it were in his power he would never allow her to ever cover herself again, no — he would parade her all over Paris, to her appointments with editors and composers and impresarios, to those insufferable salons, with nothing under her skirts, and let her go fuck Debussy and whatever young and handsome starving artist might gain her favour, but they all would see _his_ handprints and bruises on her skin, and how she dripped for _him_.

And this, too, this was madness and delusion, but it was a step up from keeping her locked away, was it not?

All thoughts left him, however, the moment he suddenly felt her hands on him, felt her free his painfully swollen cock from its confines of wool and linen, her grasp around him strong and determined — and that could not be real, no, it had to be a feverish dream, how she began to stroke him from root to tip and set up a skilled pace, merciless in her lascivious confidence — why, why — was this his punishment now, her retaliation, a fight between two wanton lunatics?

And then he felt his eyes fly open in rapture — when had he squeezed them shut, when? — as wet heat engulfed the head of his cock all of a sudden, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of that woman devouring his lewd appendage with her lips and tongue, stuffing her cheeks with the perverse size of him, and moaning shamelessly around his girth — the sensation of which hummed along the nerves all over his body and filled his mind with dissonant buzzing. The sight was even better, even worse, than the mere sensation, he decided right then, with her eyes behind those wire frame spectacles so keenly locked on his, because there was no doubt in her gaze and no acting, no agenda but raw hunger.

Under the iron grip of his fists, the wood of the armrests bit into his skin and gave him the minute distraction he needed to find a new kind of determination within himself and summon whatever was left of his control. He could do so much better than Debussy, so much better than the whole sad army of poets and painters and composers that was doubtlessly clamouring for her attention, for her flesh, and for her infuriating talent and ruthless criticism too; he could outshine all of them if he set his mind to it, monster or not. The grotesque and the mad was in demand, was it not, but he could offer her the real thing. And did she not already know this? Had she not admitted as much?

His hands left the armrests to take command again, and they found her lovely head of their own volition, fingertips burrowing into the softness of her hair, urging her on in her relentless ministrations, this indescribable sucking and licking, and oh my God, those lewd noises — he was swimming in the sound, the sight, the feel of her, deliciously drowning in the overwhelming kaleidoscope of sensations. There was no way Erik could suppress the need to move any longer, to meet her oh-so-thrillingly bobbing motions, and there was an answering expression of approval flickering over her features, a glint in her eyes that pulled him in like a beacon, and before he could think on the matter any longer, he already saw and felt his hips thrusting towards the welcoming heat of her mouth, making his cockhead and half of his shaft disappear and reemerge spit-glazed in a carefully measured but still assertive rhythm — and still he held back, as he saw images in his mind of stuffing the full grotesque length into her, of fucking her throat with abandon till she choked on it and fainted, and he would keep going, this monster would — while in reality he was holding her head in the safe cradle of his hands, conducting their movements together, effecting a harmony of wet sound and colourful sensation that no maestro could elicit more skilfully from the orchestra pit. And, indeed, he could already hear the introductory notes of a new composition take root in his mind, could see the notes taking shape and just waiting to be written down, and it was this what almost pulled him right over the edge — this was too much, and too soon, and too damn gentle, and he was losing his grasp on the newfound music, and then everything was going to be over — and she was going to leave, was she not, leave and seek completion in the arms of younger men, handsome men, men with a face who did not need to be gentle, and she was going to write for them and spread her legs for them, was she not?

And curse them all, and curse his own intrusive thoughts, and damn this woman, he did not need her, nor any other human being. He did not need her — but he did want her.

It cost him quite an effort, but he stopped her movements and pulled this much too talented mouth off him, to a disapproving sound of protest from Cat, but there were worse things to confront than her hungry impatience, as he had to face the blatant sight of his engorged cock now sticking out from his black trousers in disgusting contrast, stiff and shiny and… purple, there was no other word for it, and altogether importunate, and in one fluid motion he pulled Cat up from her kneeling position on the floor and went straight for her skirts, oh, and she understood, she understood immediately and between their joined efforts the mass of fabric was gathered and crumpled and pushed aside, and a forceful tug later the bloomers that had still been sitting awkwardly and twisted around her knees, effectively trapping her and restricting movement, were off, gone with the promising sound of seams ripping — and this violent noise was in itself freeing — and he pulled her onto his lap, made her straddle him, and finally that terrible appendage of his was out of sight again — hidden with one long thrust in the depth of her cunt, that it made her cry out with the impetuous intrusion. It was a tight fit, and all Erik could do was to try and steady his breathing and calm his much too rapidly beating heart, as her chest was rising and falling against his in mirrored agitation.

“Thirty-five,” she said suddenly, into his shoulder.

“Thirty-five?” His voice came out breathy.

She leant back a little to look into his eyes, and the minute shifting of their connected bodies made him groan. “I am willing to reduce the total of hyphenated expressions to thirty-five,” she said with all the composure of a woman not currently skewered by his monstrous cock, but the vibrato of her voice gave her away. “And I might have another look at my prepositions. And we will discuss Faust’s character development again, not that I will budge from my concept much. But, Erik…” There was that playful glint in her eyes again.

“Yes?”

“ _L’Amour Ne Meurt Jamais_ is still the worst dross you ever wrote.”

His breath left him in a noisy exhale that could have been a snort of abrupt laughter or an inelegant expression of a huff — he was not sure about anything right now short of the embarrassing fact that this noise had come from him — but it mattered little, because before he knew it or could even process the impertinence, Cat’s hands found his shoulders and grasped them tightly, and then her body began to move against his, making the most of the leverage, and he felt the sweet slide up and down his cock, the eager grasp of her cunt, like a tight fist gliding along his length, but, no, so much better than a fist, so much better than his own all too familiar fist! This was rapture and insolence, and heaven and hell, and he grabbed her arse roughly to better support her above him, but mostly because its supple cheeks were conveniently there for him to reach and squeeze and hold on to, and she let him take over the rhythm, as he drove her up and down on his cock, with punishing force, and surely his iron hold on her well-spanked flesh did something to her, as she whimpered and threw her head back, exposing the elegant column of her neck.

This, however, was a sight to behold and did unspeakable things to _him_ , this unblemished, vulnerable part of her, that he could so easily wrap his hands around — she would let him, this irreverent muse, would she not, in this infuriating way of hers, she had touched him, and she would trust him, challenging and tempting the beast, and surely _seeing_ it, seeing man and beast in one combined, and oh, this was good, much too good, it ripped groans and growls out of him in counterpoint to her own melody, that took on a new, frantic quality when he let one of his hands leave its grip on her arse and wander over her thigh, and brought it forward to find the sensitive nub under her triangle of curls, just above the place where his cock kept thrusting into her. It took only the slightest of touches there, and then she was already convulsing above him, spasming violently and squeezing his cock with her inner walls, and her shameless screams of ecstasy — his name, his name! — pulled him over the edge with her and drained every last bit of tension and rage and ever-torturous thinking out of him, all but wrung him dry, as her cunt eagerly soaked up spurt after spurt of his seed, and her dress caught the hot tears that were falling from his eyes, dripped down his good cheek and from under his mask, and while he should have hated every single one of them, he could not find it in himself to care.

When he regained the basic skills of coherent thought again and the world stopped being a mere jumble of blurry colours and hazy sounds and fuzzy senses, the first thing Erik became aware of was the warm and heavy blanket draped all over him — no, not a blanket, but a woman, this woman, thoroughly dishevelled and tousled, a tumble of silk and hair and flesh, her head on his shoulder and the rest of her draped all over his seated body, boneless and sated, like a big lazy cat basking in the sun. He also became uncomfortably aware how… wet everything felt, the skin under his mask, and his own sweat-dampened clothes, and the spreading stain on the wool of his trousers where, and at this he could not help grimacing, he had slipped out of her, and now her juices and his own shameful seed were seeping into his fine evening wear — this pair of trousers was probably a lost cause —, and the wood of the chair was also digging into his back rather painfully under the added weight of her, and his left leg had gone numb and was now slowly coming back to life with pins and needles. Lacking a proper frame of reference in regard to such delicate situations, he carefully tried to extricate himself from under her form while being as much a gentleman as possible given the circumstances, but then she stretched and moved and her naked thigh grazed his spent cock just so, sending a jolt of sensation through his hypersensitive body, and his sharp intake of breath was obviously enough to rouse her from her snooze and, after a few lazy blinks that made the cat comparison even more justified, he felt her pensive gaze on his face and fought hard to not reach up and check once more if his mask was sitting correctly.

“You know, Erik,” she finally broke the pondering silence, “we have gone all wrong about this.”

Of course, he knew what was to come now, it had been clear from the beginning, and he should have just contented himself with whatever had been offered in the spur of the insane moment without getting all-too attached to the possibilities and the hopes and the idiotic yearning for more — a repeat _performance_? a continued collaboration to create beautiful music with daring poetry? a future for a deformed composer and his deviant muse, in whatever way attainable, even without surprise wedding dresses and attempts at extortion? — and still he cursed himself now for allowing even the slightest feeling of disappointment and sadness. And he was about to push her away and finally get up from the stupid throne, gentlemanly behaviour be forgotten, when she continued:

“We should have worked on your opera together from the beginning instead of pitting our artistic visions against each other, impersonal letter after letter. It is clear to me that you have very concrete ideas where you want me to take Faust’s story, and I might not agree with most of them and we might end up _fighting_ over details,” she raised one brow suggestively and he felt heat rise up under his mask, “ _hopefully_. But why don’t you play for me what you have written so far? Hearing your music will help me see the character and his tragic conflict much better… And — Erik, are you…?”

He realised he had been staring at her in what might have looked like asinine bewilderment, and that was probably not the best of looks on someone who already sported heterochromatic eyes, and his hands were twitching and hovering over her curves, aching to touch, but he also realised that he was suddenly and painfully hard against her leg again, which probably made him appear even more like a deranged monster with little impulse control; however, in his defence, not only had she not left his realm like any halfway sane person would do, but she had mentioned wanting to hear his music, had she not? Which was definitely the least likely outcome after everything he had experienced in life so far, and definitely nothing he deserved, and the sweet, vertiginous shock of it made it hard to catch up with reality.

“Erik wants to play his music for Cat, of course,” he blurted out and, summoning every last bit of control to smooth his vocal cords and still his trembling hands, he added in the tried and tested voice of the Phantom, “And I will write the most beautiful, most outrageous music for you. And combined with your words blooming like flowers of darkness it shall be an infernal triumph the world has not yet seen!”

“Sooo dramatic, Erik, really!” She sighed and got up from his lap, but her eyes were laughing at him all the way as he raced her to the bedroom.

**Postface** :

 _Le Portrait de Faust_ by reclusive eccentric Erik Corneillegué (libretto by Cat Corsair) premiered in January 1890 at the Opéra de Paris, followed by performances in numerous other European cities, and was met with critical acclaim and public outrage in equal measures. It is still touted as one of the most influential works of Symbolist opera and had significant influence on the literary oeuvre of Joris-Karl Huysmans and Oscar Wilde, the latter of which came to some notoriety over an out-of-court settlement after his novel _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ (1890/91) was accused of plagiarising Corneillegué’s _Faust_. The duo Corneillegué/Corsair went on to create several other works (among them the timeless classics _Le Pirate Silencieux_ , 1893, _Le Métamorphe_ , 1896, and _La Damnation d'Orphée_ , 1901) most of which were also translated into Russian and German, and became best known for their innovative productions at the Vienna Court Opera under Gustav Mahler, whom they followed to New York in 1908. 

Claude Debussy is said to have experienced a phase of depression and creative stagnation between 1888 and 1890, but he eventually went on to develop his own style and became a decent composer himself. For reasons unfathomable to biographers and music historians alike, he and Corneillegué were never on good speaking terms.

This beautiful illustration was created for this phic by the wonderful Klaus Scrimshaw (check out her [Tumblr](https://klausscrimshaw.tumblr.com) to see more of her gorgeous art).


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